It is said that the text of the Splendor Solis is based to a considerable degree on the
alchemical illuminated manuscript Aurora Consurgens from around 1410 that the author
of the Splendor Solis turned into a new text by a kind of patchwork process. However, the author
evidently did not consult one of the Latin versions from the fifteenth century, but rather
absorbed a richly illustrated German translation that dates from around 1520 and is today
kept in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek. At the same time, this manuscript also served as inspiration and
a model for many of the details within the illustrations of the Splendor Solis.

It should be noted that the traditional ascription to "Salomon/Solomon Trismosin" is quite incorrect. Contrary to Kohn's mistaken opinion, Splendor Solis is the one text that does not belong to the "corpus" of Trismosin's writings at all. The most distinctive mark of Trismosin's genuine writings are all those bizarre & often Greek-sounding names & decknamen ("Julaton", "Moratosan", "Sarlamethon", "Cangeniveron", "Nefolon", "Geroton", "Jumelothon", "Xophalat", "Jaforon", "Chybur", etc.), just like in his autobiography (which Kohn accepted as authentic, yet at the same time absurdly rejected all the other pieces in the exact same style of the genuine author hiding under the "Trismosin" pseudonym), which the Splendor Solis totally lacks. Also, contrary to the author of the Splendor Solis, who was obviously a typical alchemist and is not concerned with anything but the making of the Stone, Trismosin's genuine texts are more interested in "particulars" of all kinds (once again, just like in his autobiography, most of which is concerned with his heavy involvement in these kinds of processes, specially while he was working in the impressive laboratory of that Venetian nobleman.) Trismosin was pretty much a "chymist-alchemist": interested in the Stone, but more heavily concerned with other types of transmutation processes.

One final note on "Salomon/Solomon Trismosin": whoever he really was, he is also very obviously the same person behind the pseudonyms "Hieronymus Crinot", "Bartholomeus Korndorffer" and "Georg Biltdorff". "Coincidentally", they "all" have the exact same style and use the exact same bizarre names and decknamen that are found nowhere else in the whole literature of alchemy/chymistry except in "their" writings.

All this is well described by the natural master ARISTOTLE, in the fourth Book METEOROLOGICORUM,
when he says, that QUICKSILVER is a matter common to all metals. But it must be known that first in Nature is the compound matter of the four elements.

In acknowledging this property of Nature, the Philosophers called their Matter MERCURIUS, or QUICKSILVER

I am not sure if this is the writings of Aristotle that the writer was referring to, but if it is I was surprised to find only one entry that mentions "quicksilver" throughout the whole text. This was at the bottom of "book IV, section 10" referenced as written by unknown author...

The bodies which do not admit of solidification are those which contain no aqueous moisture and are not watery, but in which heat and earth preponderate, like honey and must (for these are in a sort of state of effervescence), and those which do possess some water but have a preponderance of air, like oil and quicksilver, and all viscous substances such as pitch and birdlime.

No mention of quicksilver being a matter common to all metals.

My point here is that there are so many texts that all have contradictory information making alchemy a labyrinth without a map.

On page 14 of JDP's link of the Slendor Solis it says...

THIS BOOK
IS NAMED
SPLENDOR SOLIS
OR
Splendour of the Sun
AND IS DIVIDED INTO SEVEN PARTS, IN WHICH IS
DESCRIBED THE HIDDEN MYSTERY OF THE OLD
PHILOSOPHERS, AS WELL AS ALL THAT NATURE
REQUIRES TO CLEARLY ACCOMPLISH THE WHOLE
WORK, INCLUDING ALL THE ADDED T H I N G S ; A F T E R
WHICH NO ONE SHALL BE ADVISED TO GRAPPLE
WITH THE MYSTERY OF THE NOBLE ART WITH HIS
OWN SENSES.

Note the word, "clearly", is an oxymoron as there is nothing in alchemy which is clear

Which texts can be trusted, how many books should one read to get the whole picture, for as it states above, "no one shall be advised to grapple with this mystery of the noble art with his own senses", therefore one must have to rely on the senses of an outside influence. Is this influence to come from the text of others (needle in a haystack) or is there a form of collective consciousness, or as Carl Jung might put it, "collective unconsciousness", one can tap into?

Of all the texts on alchemy ask yourself why you chose a particular text to follow. It only takes one word to direct you down a different road; has anyone got a road map?

Perhaps the map is in our heads, we just need to find a way to retrieve it.

I am not sure if this is the writings of Aristotle that the writer was referring to, but if it is I was surprised to find only one entry that mentions "quicksilver" throughout the whole text. This was at the bottom of "book IV, section 10" referenced as written by unknown author...

No mention of quicksilver being a matter common to all metals.

The book being referred to is obviously the "Meteorology" of Aristotle:

But as you can see, he did not use the word "mercury" in the sense quoted above (i.e. as one of the "principles" of metallic composition.) This was an early medieval interpretation of Aristotle's theory of metallogenesis. The "mercury" principle was how the early Muslims interpreted Aristotle's "moist vapor" in his theoretical framework of how metals/minerals were supposedly generated (the "dry smoke" was in its turn interpreted as a "sulphur" principle.) So the author of Splendor Solis is certainly using some medieval commentator of Aristotle's Meteorology rather than Aristotle's own work directly.

My point here is that there are so many texts that all have contradictory information making alchemy a labyrinth without a map.

On page 14 of JDP's link of the Slendor Solis it says...

Note the word, "clearly", is an oxymoron as there is nothing in alchemy which is clear

Some are clearer than others.

Which texts can be trusted, how many books should one read to get the whole picture, for as it states above, "no one shall be advised to grapple with this mystery of the noble art with his own senses", therefore one must have to rely on the senses of an outside influence. Is this influence to come from the text of others (needle in a haystack) or is there a form of collective consciousness, or as Carl Jung might put it, "collective unconsciousness", one can tap into?

Of all the texts on alchemy ask yourself why you chose a particular text to follow. It only takes one word to direct you down a different road; has anyone got a road map?

Perhaps the map is in our heads, we just need to find a way to retrieve it.

Ghislain

Let's take a look at the quote in its proper context, and not bring in modern revisionist (mis)interpretations like those of Jung:

THIS BOOK
IS NAMED
SPLENDOR SOLIS
OR
Splendour of the Sun
AND IS DIVIDED INTO SEVEN PARTS, IN WHICH IS
DESCRIBED THE HIDDEN MYSTERY OF THE OLD
PHILOSOPHERS, AS WELL AS ALL THAT NATURE
REQUIRES TO CLEARLY ACCOMPLISH THE WHOLE
WORK, INCLUDING ALL THE ADDED THINGS; AFTER
WHICH NO ONE SHALL BE ADVISED TO GRAPPLE
WITH THE MYSTERY OF THE NOBLE ART WITH HIS
OWN SENSES.

In other words: the author is pretty much making the grandiloquent claim that this book must be followed or you will be lost. So don't try to deviate from it, even if your own experience tells you otherwise. This is plainly self-aggrandizing advertisement, something which a lot of alchemists did to promote their writings over those of others: "if you don't follow what my book says you will be hopelessly lost!" It's BS advertisement though, as the only way to know for sure if what a writer is telling you is in fact truthful is by comparing your empirical experience to what he claims. If it matches, then you might very well be on the right track and the author has been pretty honest. We can see plainer examples of this in the relatively clearer literature of "chymistry": the majority of its pretty clearly described transmutation processes are nothing but a bunch of BALONEY made up by charlatans & boasters to make people waste their time and money, yet a relative minority of them do indeed work, some of them quite literally as written, others work with some minor tinkering & changes (which are not too difficult to discover by any person experienced in these matters.) It is the same in the literature of alchemy, properly, except that the level of contradictions, obscurities, false leads, analogies, riddles, vagueness, speculations, etc., has been more exaggerated, making the whole thing even more difficult to unravel.

RIP Stephen Hawking

8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018

Who died without knowing the empirical reality of "chymical" transmutations. As Mr. T would say: